Justice

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.

Even here in America, we felt the cool, refreshing breeze of freedom when Nelson Mandela took the seat of Presidency in his country where formerly he was not even allowed to vote. We were enlarged by tears of pride as we saw Nelson Mandela’s former prison guards invited, courteously, by him to watch from the front rows his inauguration.

There is no news value to the content of those [Newtown 911] tapes. The actual audio is of no news value at all, unless you want the thrill of hearing the sound of the actual individual gunshot that might have killed a 7 year-old.

Odd how often blood is shed to obtain freedom from those in power. Oppressors must be the most insecure people in the world.

I saw how the university life goes, both in Europe and then in the US…and I was just aghast, because everyone was what I call drillers of deeper wells. These academics sit at the bottom of a deep well and they look up and see a sliver of the sky. They know everything about that little sliver of sky, and nothing else. I scan all my horizons.

Even if many women in Egypt had discovered suddenly during the revolution that they had a voice and they could express what they wanted, they now are back in the family and in the kitchen, and this is where they are told they should be. And this is very grim.

Ultimately, only diplomacy can bring about a durable solution to the challenge posed by Iran’s nuclear program. As President and Commander in Chief, I will do what is necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. However, I have a profound responsibility to try to resolve our differences peacefully, rather than rush towards conflict. Today, we have a real opportunity to achieve a comprehensive, peaceful settlement, and I believe we must test it.

While Downton’s plot twist was more cynically deployed than Scandal’s, both shows exploited the drama of rape instead of exploring the realities of it.

Dr. [Martin Luther] King [Jr.] had many other goals - many other more transcendent, non-racial, policy goals. Goals that apply to white people too. Like ending poverty, reducing the war aspects of our foreign policy, promoting the New Deal goal of universal employment, and so on. But his main accomplishment was ending 200
years of racial terrorism by getting black people to confront their fears... That is what Dr. King did. Not march, not give good speeches. He crisscrossed the south organizing people, helping them not be afraid, and encouraging them - like Gandhi did in India - to take the beating that they had been trying to avoid all their lives. Once the beating was over, we were free.

Three years ago, I did not imagine my arm would move again. For so many days, it did not. I did exercise after exercise, day after day, until it did. I’m committed to my rehab and I’m committed to my country. And my resolution, standing with the vast majority of Americans who know we can and must be safer, is to cede no ground to those who would convince us the path is too steep, or we too weak.

¦This is not a tool to bring down regimes. We never though of ourselves like this. We were just, you know, cracking jokes about the status quo. And it’s a way to deal with our differences…I think it’s a very healthy, cathartic way of freedom of expression. As a matter of fact, having a show like this reflects well on the government – that it allows something like this.

I think I’m speaking for a bunch of girls when I say that the idea that feminism is completely natural and shouldn’t even be something that people find mildly surprising. It’s just a part of being a girl in 2013.